Skepticism and fear surrounding vaccines were fed by a flawed study done in 1998 linking the MMR vaccine to autism. The study was quickly discredited, we’re still dealing with the repercussions.
Mental and Physical Health
Posted inBiology, Civics and Government, Law and Public Policy, Lesson Plan, Mental and Physical Health
Lesson Plan: Influencing Public Policy – The Story of Thalidomide
Students will learn how a prescription medication’s devastating side effects shocked the nation decades ago and led to today’s federal drug safety guidelines.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: The Bystander Effect
Students will learn how social psychologists developed the concept of the bystander effect to explain passive reactions to a shocking crime in 1964, and how that theory can help to explain concerning behavior online today.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Psychology – Dissociative Disorder
Students will learn how a best-selling book and a popular movie about multiple personality disorder gave rise to a crisis of misdiagnosis and maltreatment, and how that now-debunked diagnosis has been replaced by a new one: dissociative identity disorder.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Lobotomy – A Dangerous Fad’s Lingering Effects on Mental Illness
Students will learn about the rise and decline of the prefrontal lobotomy as a treatment for a range of mental disorders, and its lasting impact on neurological psychiatric surgeries today.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Finding the Code: The Race to Sequence the Human Genome and What It Means
Students will learn how the human genome was first sequenced, and how attempts to use this discovery to cure diseases has been complicated by epigenetics and the complexity of genetic disease factors.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Hallucinogens as Treatment?
Students will learn how LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) was studied for potential therapeutic uses until it was banned in 1970, and how researchers today are pioneering a new role for hallucinogens within clinical settings.
Posted inCivics and Government
Lesson Plan: Understanding the Dangers of Lead
Students will examine the effects of lead exposure on children and determine how different levels of government have attempted to address the problems associated with this toxin.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: The Surprising Legacy of the Boy in the Bubble
Students will learn about the life of David Vetter and examine his impact on medical advancements and medical understanding of rare diseases.
Posted inU.S. History
Lesson Plan: AIDS: From Ryan White to Today’s Silent Epidemic
Students will learn the historical context of the AIDS crisis in the United States in the 1980s, and where it stands today.
